A social experiment in quilty communication and collaboration. Discover a virtual patchwork of quilters throughout the year: each week a new quilter will take over the 52Quilters twitter, blog and instagram. The goal of this project is to document the collective crafted life of quilters.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Week 11 - Meet Michelle Bartholomew

Hi everyone! I’m so excited to be taking over 52 Quilters this week! I have a ton of fun quilt photos and blog posts for you this week. I am looking forward to getting to know you all and having great crafty conversations.

Let me officially introduce myself… I’m Michelle, a photographer & technical writer, turned obsessed quilter. I live in the Cascade mountains of the Washington State (USA) with my husband and our 16 month old little girl. We have a little cabin in the woods along with a tiny house that we built and lived in over the past few years. The nearest town is a little Bavarian style tourist town. It has a pretty great Oktoberfest and if you use a little imagination, it really feels like you're in another country.

I have been sewing & quilting off and on for a couple of years (a baby will do that!) and am self taught via the good ol’ internet. Although I am a newer quilter, I've always has the desire to make and be artistic. I just hadn't found the right avenue to express that until I found quilting!!!

I’m drawn to simple, geometric quilt designs and solid fabrics, but have a hard time saying no to stripes, polka dots, and small florals as well. I sew on a vintage Kenmore machine and have a little quilting studio corner set up in our loft. This little collage is a good representation of some of the past projects I’ve worked on. I’ll be sharing some more recent stuff with you this week over on instagram!

One of my favorite projects I've been working on lately is a modern quilting newsletter. I get to interview my favorite quilters and share inspiration each month. Along with that, I have just recently designed and launched my first quilt pattern called Starbelt for my newsletter subscribers. This week, the plan is to sew it from start to finish! I’m a pretty slow sewist, but I’m going to give it a shot! I would love to continue to design more patterns and it would be an absolute dream to design fabric. I love that quilting can incorporate so many different types of art and can be as high tech or as low tech as you want it to be.

Here are a few random facts about me:

-I use exclamation points a lot, but am trying to get that under control! But I’m excited a lot!
-I love cheese and wine
-My favorite place I’ve traveled to is the Galapagos Islands
-I dance awkwardly and with great enthusiasm
-I played soccer in college and consequently have a hard time finding pants that go over my thighs
-Half of my fabric stash is prewashed and half isn’t. I can’t decide which way to go on that
-If you ask me to lunch, I will strongly suggest we get sushi

Thanks so much for taking some time out to meet me and I’m excited to spend the week with you!

Post by Michelle Week #11: Michelle is a former professional photographer and technical writer, who combined her love of art and instruction into a passion for quilting. She lives in the woods outside of a faux-bavarian village with her husband & her tiny tot, and is on a mission to fill their house with quilty goodness. Come say hi on on instagram ir at on michellebartholomew.com

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Each week a new quilter will take over the 52Quilters social media accounts and use them to share what they do, what inspires them and the world they live in. Follow 52Quilters to find out about new quilters and their communities.